


Desolation

by DownToTheSea



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Daemon Separation, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/pseuds/DownToTheSea
Summary: Marisa Coulter leaves her daemon behind.
Relationships: Marisa Coulter & Marisa Coulter's Daemon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Desolation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janetcarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts).



> Since the TV show doesn't give us details about how Coulter separates from her daemon, I've just gone ahead and assumed she found out somehow about the witches doing it and echoed their process. Thanks to Mr. Pullman for releasing Serpentine and giving me more canonical details about this exactly when I needed it haha.
> 
> SERPENTINE SPOILERS: There was an ancient city that somehow drifted too close or got opened onto another world and was then blasted by whatever was inhabiting that world, and since then nothing has been able to exist there. The witches travel across it but their daemons don't/can't follow, which initiates the process of separation.

Nothing had lived in this stretch of land for thousands of years, or so claimed the witches. Standing on its borders, Marisa Coulter could well believe it. It reached out in front of her in an endless abyss of white. Any long-dead trees had collapsed ages ago; now nothing grew at all to break the flatness of the world. Nothing except, here and there, a snow-covered mound. But those weren't living either, just collapsed remnants of the civilization that had once called this place its home.

Underneath her thick coat, she shivered. The mounds were the only indication that below centuries of snow lay the skeleton ruins of an ancient city. She would have to walk through them to reach the other side, to complete her – transformation.

Her daemon stood beside her. She must get used to thinking of him that way: her daemon. Not by his name, not as her dearest companion. It would be easier that way. He was just her daemon: an unwanted but unfortunately necessary part of being human. A vulnerability.

The further she separated herself from him, the better. Then perhaps whatever weakness in her nature had led to her affair with Asriel, her resulting disgrace and expulsion from society – perhaps that would all be wiped away.

Her daemon caught hold of her coat in a silent plea. She didn’t look down at him, but she still felt his fear and shuddered. Another reason to go through with this: so she would never be afraid again. His fear was for what was coming, of course, yet also… for her? She looked at the remains of the city, wiped out by a power beyond comprehension, and understood.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” Or more specifically, she didn’t believe if they were real that they could harm her: what could an echo of someone from a thousand years ago do to her, when she had already suffered so much?

Still he held on.

“It’s fine,” she said, without looking at him. “This will be much better for both of us. It makes the witches more powerful, you know.” She finally looked down at him, but whatever he saw in her eyes didn’t comfort him. “More power is precisely what we need. Not…  _ this.” _

She waved a hand, encompassing their bond, or what remained of it.

“No more distractions. No more weakness. No more…” For the first time, she faltered. The bond between humans and daemons was sacred. It was part of what made them human. Was _no more humanity_ what she wanted? Would she become like the witches, terrible and timeless? Would she simply cut away the last painful thread binding her to this reflection of herself? Could she even survive?

“Of course I will,” she muttered. She could survive anything. And what had being a fallible human ever done for her? If she could take the chance to leave her weakness and her sin behind, shouldn’t she seize it?

Her daemon still held onto her coat.

Shouldn’t she?

More foolish, human self-doubt. She would be free of it, free forever, if she could only bring herself to take that step.

She took it.

Another step, then another, while the ache inside her grew to a screaming pain.

She didn’t look back.


End file.
